Chula Vista, CA., USA. February 27, 2012, Monday. This year teachers at Hilltop Middle School in Chula Vista began a pilot program using the iPad in several classes. Emilio Ugarte uses an iPad in Benjamin Black&apos;s Science class to learn about Isaac Newton&apos;s Theory. The class uses the iPad app called Toontastic. Photo By Crissy Pascual. Story by Tawny McCray.

Chula Vista, CA., USA. February 27, 2012, Monday. This year teachers at Hilltop Middle School in Chula Vista began a pilot program using the iPad in several classes. Emilio Ugarte uses an iPad in Benjamin Black's Science class to learn about Isaac Newton's Theory. The class uses the iPad app called Toontastic. Photo By Crissy Pascual. Story by Tawny McCray.

CHULA VISTA 
Students no longer use paper and pencils in Benjamin Black’s eighth grade physical science class. Instead they’ve upgraded to iPads as the primary tool in the classroom, taking tests and doing their homework on the device.

“This is a new game changer now,” Black said during Monday’s class. “Students get individual feedback. They’re working on different things at their own pace. If they’re struggling I see who’s not there and I’m helping those students. Those who are ready to progress can really progress and those who need help are getting it. It’s a lot more targeted.”

Black’s class at Hilltop Middle School is part of a pilot program the was initiated at the school last year. The iPads cost around $500 and the students are paying for them in monthly installments of about $20. The program was initiated by parents of students in the Foreign Language and Global Studies program at the school.

Now there are plans to provide all incoming seventh graders in the Sweetwater Union High School District with iPads beginning next school year. The plan was initiated by a group of 25 teachers in the district who reviewed several tablet devices and selected the iPad. It was approved at last week’s ﻿school board meeting. The approximately 6,600 students will use the tablets in place of textbooks and will have access to electronic versions of all books and learning applications.

The total cost for the first year of the project would be $4.3 million and would utilize money from Proposition O, Mello-Roos taxes and textbook funds. The cost includes the devices, online applications and textbooks, and insurance to cover lost, stolen, or broken devices. The district will pay for the devices and the students will have the option of buying them.

As the devices continue to be rolled out, the district will look into additional funding sources and grants to be able to fund the endeavor as each new seventh grade begins. Superintendent Ed Brand said the total approximate cost for implementing this would be $24 million over the next six years.

“We’re proposing to make South County kids get a leg-up in their educational environment so that they can be the first in line to go to the prestigious schools, to get the prestigious jobs, to be the CEOs and the directors rather than just the workers,” Brand said.

While three board members voted in favor of the tablets, board member Bertha Lopez voted against the tablets saying now is not the right time because the district is $27 million in the hole for next year’s budget. Board President Pearl Quinones abstained from the vote saying she didn’t have enough information about the long-term funding of the program.

In Black’s class Monday, students were studying Newton’s laws of motion. Their assignment was to create a cartoon, using an iPad application called Toontastic, that demonstrates either Newton’s first or third law.

Samantha Dow, 14, did a cartoon of a car hitting a wall to demonstrate Newton’s first law, which states an object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Mark Macias, 14, created a cartoon of a baseball player hitting a ball to demonstrate Newton’s third law, which states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.